Asserts that the papers of the First Ladies should be examined in order to help people understand the past. Illustrates the role of the First Ladies and argues for the importance of their papers by discussing Eleanor Roosevelt's work and influence. (CMK)

Provides a lesson plan that highlights the Prudence Crandall Museum and Little Rock Central High School (AR) and the role each played in testing the prevailing assumptions regarding racial integration of schools. Includes teacher and student materials. (CMK)

Describes projects launched in the 1990s (at Duke University and the University of Michigan, for example) that are attempting to digitize images of ancient papyrus collections and to provide indexed electronic access to them. The five largest American projects of this kind have formed a consortium which addresses issues of policy and user…

Provides background information on the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection. Presents teaching activities that focus on the background information and Commodore George Dewey's response to Assistant Secretary Roosevelt's telegram that ordered Dewey to take up offensive operations in the Philippines. (CMK)

Proposes a context for use of authentic German-American texts and materials such as letters, photographs, and other archival immigrant materials at various levels in the college German-language classroom. Suggests that such an approach may be useful in boosting enrollment in language and literature courses. (Author/MSE)

Discusses the use of student journals when teaching with primary sources. Focuses on an early U.S. history course for sophomore and junior college students. States that the students read a series of primary sources and analyzed them in their journals. Addresses the benefits of using primary sources. (CMK)

Presents a summary and sample teaching document from Todd Bennett's "Culture, Power, and 'Mission to Moscow': Film and Soviet-American Relations during World War II" from the Journal of American History. Focuses on the ties between World War II diplomacy and popular culture by focusing on the movie "Mission to Moscow." (CMK)

Provides historical information on the life of Sally Tompkins who received a commission as captain in the Confederate cavalry for her work at the Robertson Hospital (Richmond, Virginia) during the Civil War. Includes learning activities, a copy of her obituary, a photograph of the Sally Tompkins monument, and a photograph analysis worksheet. (CMK)

Presents a lesson in which students learn about the different types of marriage migration. Focuses on the influences of demographics, politics, and economics in encouraging marriage migration and how the reasons for marriage have changed. Offers four primary sources by members of four different ethnic groups and three different time periods. (CMK)

Provides a collection of websites on the Gilded Age that include lesson plans, a chronology, electronic texts, and other resources. Offers a variety of topics such as, but not limited to, African American history, coal mining, political cartoons, architecture, bibliographical information on public figures, and the Spanish-American War. (CMK)

Illustrates how the transformation approach can be used to enhance the social studies curriculum. Describes a project where elementary students analyze primary documents and firsthand accounts of a shared, class experience in order to help them understand the role that cultural perspective plays in the recording of history. (CMK)

Maintains that students will learn history better if it is presented as a historic narrative. Presents an example where the students first are given an advanced organizer on Reconstruction and then two primary documents by David Golightly Harris and Henry Adams. Describes the process of sourcing the document, corroborating evidence, and…

In United States history, the GAPE or Gilded Age and Progressive Era, roughly the last third of the nineteenth and first two decades of the twentieth centuries, constitutes one of the most formative and complex of periods, a time that historians designate as the birth of the United States. Many high school students and undergraduates find this…

The question, "What were the causes of World War I?," has become one of the classic historical debates of which there seem to be endless permutations. In the past 90 years historians, journalists, and politicians have offered many more or less rational explanations for the war. Although at least some of the usual "causes"…

This paper describes a pedagogical technique employed for an interdisciplinary course on Cold War America. Students had to "become" a fictional person and discuss how political and social changes during the Cold War era would have impacted that person. By doing a semester-long project that required primary source research, this…